Trust Science Acquires Lenders API to Build Fraud Defence System for Lenders
•February 10, 2026
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Why It Matters
The acquisition consolidates fragmented fraud data, giving Canadian lenders a unified, real‑time defence that can reduce losses and improve credit access for legitimate borrowers.
Key Takeaways
- •Trust Science adds Lenders API’s consortium tech.
- •Creates Canada’s first industry-wide fraud defence network.
- •Real‑time anonymized data sharing deters loan stacking.
- •Integration expands AI risk tools across auto, consumer loans.
- •Founders remain advisors, ensuring continuity.
Pulse Analysis
The merger reflects a broader trend in fintech where data‑rich platforms are consolidating to address systemic risk. Canada’s lending ecosystem has long suffered from siloed credit information, limiting lenders’ ability to spot coordinated fraud. By uniting Trust Science’s AI‑driven risk analytics with Lenders API’s consortium model, the combined entity can leverage a larger, anonymized data pool, delivering faster, more accurate fraud signals without compromising borrower privacy. This synergy not only strengthens individual lenders’ underwriting but also raises the overall resilience of the credit market.
Technically, the consortium approach allows participating institutions to submit queries and receive instant alerts when a borrower’s profile matches known fraud patterns. Anonymization at source ensures that sensitive data never leaves the originating lender, while real‑time flag propagation curtails loan stacking, bust‑out, and synthetic identity attacks. Trust Science’s AI engine can now enrich these alerts with cash‑flow analytics and alternative data, creating a multilayered risk score that adapts to evolving fraud tactics. The model also offers a scalable pricing structure based on query volume, making it attractive for both large fintechs and smaller credit unions.
From a market perspective, the combined platform positions Trust Science as a dominant player in Canadian non‑prime and auto financing, with an eye toward expanding into mortgages. Regulators are likely to view the consortium favorably, as it promotes data sharing while maintaining compliance with privacy standards. Competitors may be forced to develop similar collaborative solutions or risk falling behind in fraud mitigation capabilities. Ultimately, the acquisition could set a new benchmark for industry‑wide fraud defence, encouraging broader adoption of shared‑risk infrastructures across North America.
Trust Science acquires Lenders API to build fraud defence system for lenders
Toronto-based fraud prevention platform Lenders API has been acquired by Edmonton’s Trust Science, which helps lenders vet prospective borrowers with limited credit histories.
The Canadian FinTech companies claim that this deal, which closed last week and was announced Tuesday, “creates Canada’s first industry-wide defence system against coordinated lending fraud.” Neither firm disclosed the financial terms of the transaction, which saw Trust Science acquire Lenders API’s technology, customers, and data.
“Lenders API was built with the industry, for the industry.”
Evan Chrapko,
Trust Science
Lenders API was founded in 2023 by Tal Schwartz, who worked as the company’s CEO, and his father, Gary Schwartz, Lenders’ former chair. Tal is the mind behind Canadian Fintech newsletter, while Gary is the founder of Canadian Lenders Association (CLA) and the former leader of FinTech-focused venture capital fund North Exit Ventures (formerly Exit North Ventures).
The father-son Schwartz duo launched Lenders API in collaboration with CLA’s small and medium-sized business (SMB), consumer, and automotive finance members, raising an undisclosed amount of angel capital from industry to support its growth.
The four-person FinTech firm works directly with institutions in non-prime consumer credit, small business lending, and auto finance, helping participants detect coordinated lending fraud while keeping their proprietary customer data private through its consortium-based solution.
“The consortium allows lenders to share credit and fraud data with each other, in real time,” Tal told BetaKit. “Borrower data comes in; we anonymize it at source; we notify other lenders in the consortium if we see a match; flags are passed between lenders anonymously.”
Lenders paid to participate and were charged based on the volume of queries they submitted. Tal said Lenders API’s clients included several of Canada’s largest FinTech lenders.
Coordinated lending fraud can include loan stacking, bust-out fraud, and synthetic identity schemes. Loan stacking entails securing multiple loans from different lenders simultaneously, often using the same collateral, with no intention of repayment.
Bust-out fraud involves groups that have established normal borrowing histories obtaining loans across institutions, immediately defaulting on them, and disappearing, whereas synthetic identity fraud refers to the use of fabricated or manipulated identities to fraudulently open accounts and secure loans.
RELATED: Father-son Schwartz duo team up with FinTech founders to launch North Exit Ventures
“We knew that access to real-time credit and fraud data in Canada was limited, and that in order to solve that, you would need the buy-in of a substantial chunk of the industry—which we were able to do given our leadership in the Canadian market,” Tal said.
Founded in 2014, Trust Science offers AI-powered risk and decisioning tech to financial institutions designed to help them make lending decisions with the help of alternative data and cashflow analytics. The company, which works with prime and subprime lenders across North America, focuses on auto finance and consumer loans with plans to move into mortgages soon.
Gary and Tal got to know Trust Science founder and CEO Evan Chrapko via his involvement with the CLA, and Tal said they were impressed by his product innovation and vision. In a statement, Gary said, “Trust Science brings the scale, governance, and bank-grade compliance capabilities required to take Lenders API to the next level.”
Trust Science intends to integrate Lenders API into its AI-driven risk and decisioning infrastructure to help it prevent fraud, spot identity risks, and make credit decisions. Going forward, Lenders API’s platform will continue to help SMB, consumer, and auto lenders collaboratively spot fraud, with Tal and Gary Schwartz staying on as advisors.
“Trust Scientists pride ourselves on the mission of allowing deserving people to get what they deserve,” Chrapko told BetaKit. When it comes to good people getting loans despite the failings of the conventional “credit-scoring industrial complex” there is another side of that coin: preventing con artists and fraudsters from getting limited loan funds from lenders.”
With the help of Lenders API’s system, Chrapko said that Trust Science can help banks, credit unions, and consumer finance companies stop more of those bad actors in real time.
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Lenders API.
The post Trust Science acquires Lenders API to build fraud defence system for lenders first appeared on BetaKit.
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